Shopping via mobile now the default in the UK

Shopping via mobile phones is now the default in the UK, a new research by market intelligence company SimilarWeb suggests.

According to the research, 64.54 per cent of all website visits, by UK shoppers to retailers, was made via a mobile device this year. With these figures, the UK has now surpassed the US (55 per cent), Germany (43 per cent) and France (35 per cent). It is still, however, lagging behind India, a country with 65 per cent of 'mobile' shoppers.

A total of 35.46 per cent of people visited shopping sites from a desktop computer, but that's not the only metric analysed. The number of pages visited, as well as the time spent on each is different, as well. On smartphones, people visited, in average, 7.3 pages per session. On desktops, that figure stands at 12.4 per cent.

Mobile shoppers also take less time to do their shopping, spending an average of 5 minutes and 5 seconds. On desktop, they usually take 7.21 minutes.

All of the most popular 10 UK retail sites, including Amazon, eBay and Argos, registered a bigger share of visits from mobile, compared to desktop visits.

Pavel Tuchinsky, SimilarWeb Digital Insights Manager, said: “Shopping via mobile is now the default, with all leading retailers experiencing a majority of visits to their sites via smartphones. The UK is now a European leader in mobile shopping, far ahead of France, and Germany.

"However engagement and time on site has not been maintained in the transition towards mobile shopping. Retailers must continue to embrace the rapid change towards mobile, including better checkout flows, and integrations between desktop and mobile sites.”